Hi everybody welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Now some of you will have noticed that

alongside a certain football tournament this year there is a tennis tournament taking place.

That tournament, Wimbledon has been going on for some time and in fact I discovered an

athlete, a female athlete this week, who is still a record holder. She's got a lot

of 50 Dodd, she won Wimbledon this week in 1887, she was 15 years old, she still holds

the record as the youngest champion. She won four more after that, four more Wimbledons,

then she won the British Women's Golf Championship, then played hockey for England and then won

a silver medal in the Olympic Games for Britain in archery. Archery, this is what you call

an all-rounder. I remember I swam once against Freddie Flintoff, a famous British cricket

athlete, ladies and gentlemen, listing abroad and he was described as a bit an all-rounder,

he's got a different sports. Let me tell you something, Freddie Flintoff, he's got

nothing, a lotty Dodd, look her up, she then, by the way, subbed as a nurse during the

First World War, she's a hero, a card carrying hero. Anyway this week we're reaching the

climax of Wimbledon as well as the climax of Euro 2021, so we've got a bit of sport

on the old pod this week. Lots and lots of you listening, giving feedback on the pre-game

pod for the final Italy vs England, lots of other episodes from Anger Italian History,

I've forgotten, thank you for sending them all in, it's been fascinating, it's seen

them and read them all and cursing myself and including them in the podcast. But we're

going to take a break from the football now and talk about tennis. David Berry joined me

a year or two ago on the podcast to talk to me about the people's history of tennis,

how the modern game was born in Victorian Britain and how it's evolved alongside us as we've

transformed how we look at class, sexuality, gender, race, all that kind of stuff. How

...